Maria Santa, a former actress whose star shone in the melodramatic films of the 1950s, is found dead in the National Gallery, opposite her youthful portrait. Six minutes before drawing her last breath, she revisits everything that marked her life: the romantic impulse that led her to Rome, the pursuit of a dream in the studios of Cinecittà, the harsh disappointments and losses, her return to Greece, failed artistic attempts, and her vindication in the role of an ideal Tennessee Williams heroine. Under these circumstances, she is ultimately led to a fatal mistake: confusing theatre with real life. The appearance of an ambitious young lover shatters the shell of her voluntary isolation, preparing the ground for her own subversive exit from the stage. As the final credits roll, the question that lingers is whether her death was truly natural.
A novel that seeks to illuminate the many facets of the psyche of a woman marked by an innocence at once tragic and divine. A monologue of a life balancing between loneliness and vanity, passion and disillusionment.
KASTANIOTIS, 2025, 234 P.
